Dark Side

The Dark Side

Serena's POV

The soft black water swirls around my legs. I am standing in the river. The water comes up to my knees, and it feels wonderful. Cool and gentle. Peaceful. The dim sun is setting, but the sky is still the same shade of purple. Shadowy trees bend over the river. Every now and then a wind will come sweeping down the river, and a shower of dark red leaves will come floating down. The leaves land in the river and float away, little red boats on the dark water. Smooth black riverstones line the riverbed and banks.

I step out of the river. Small, pearly drops of water fall from my legs and my fingertips. I walk beside the river, slipping in and out of the shadows. A crescent moon has risen, hanging low in the sky. The moon is beautiful here, large and majestic.

A few birds wheel about in the sky. I whistle to them, and they come to me. One lands on my shoulder, a large eagle-like creature with jet black feathers. He sways on my shoulder as I walk, and his brethren follow me, gliding on silent wings. The birds are magnificent, powerful. They are what other people might describe as terrifying, but they are not terrifying to me. I made them. The way I made the Dark Side.

I climb an old, twisted fruit tree, settling in the fork between two branches. The birds perch around me, a whole flock of them surrounding me. The wind rustles through the tree. A silver star-shaped leaf lands in my lap. It reflects the moonlight. The shadowy forest is behind me now--the river twists across an open plain, and my tree stands alone in the middle of the open space. It rises out of the grass, a solid shadow surrounded by open air.

Everything is silent.

I feel melancholy. As if sensing my mood, the birds fly off one by one. They wing their way into the forest and disappear. I am alone in the world. As much as I can't stand people, I am lonely.

It wasn't always like this. I used to have friends. I had a lot of wonderful friends. But then we grew up. They started worrying about their hair and their clothes and their makeup and I...didn't. They lost their innocent depth. They stopped creating their own lives, and let life happen to them. And I didn't. I kept my creativity. I still lived in our old fantasies. I could still find those magical places where we used to play. But my friends would no longer go there. They became stuck in the "real" world. They became shallow and narrow-minded. So I started distancing myself from them. They lost their imagination, and in the process, they lost me. Because I still had mine.

I didn't care what anyone thought of me. I kept sinking into my own world. It wasn't always the Dark Side; at first, my world retained that bright sparkle of youth. It was a fantasy. It was magical. But I was growing up too, My mood started to change my world. It became dark. Silent. I hated the pointless noise and bright lights of the real world. The electronic craze. The materialism. So I found a place where I could escape from all that. Where I could sink into the lonely silence, and just forget the world.

I found the Dark Side.

I promised myself that I would have no regrets. But I do have one. I wish that I could have a friend, just one, who I could take to the Dark Side. But I know that's impossible. Even if I could bring them here, they would never want to stay.

A dark rainbow arches across the sky. The horned moon hangs close to the horizon. Wind rustles the leaves in my tree. I love this place. I truly do. After all, it's a part of me.

It's my Dark Side.